Because I Wanted To
by Marlicat
Summary: "What do YOU want, Loony?" he sneered at her, watching without sadness as his aunt's body was lowered into the ground.  "My biggest dream used to be to find a Crumple-Horned Snorkack," She replied somberly. "Now I'm not so sure."


Sorry for the screwy format at first! I typed this on my iPod!

Disclaimer: I dont own the characers adn I dont make $$$ off of this.

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><p>She was one of those people that seemed to always be holding their breath, constantly inhaling as if she couldn't get enough of the taste of the air and the feel of it in her lungs. She looked at him expectantly, almost, sometimes like she was waiting for him to change the world, others like she was merely waiting for him to speak. He hated the feeling she gave him, like he ought to be fixing the earth. Didn't she know that just over a year ago, his idea of "fixing" the world was something horrific? And so when she turned her wide silvery eyes on him, expectantly, poised only to hear what was on his mind, he spoke with the intent of removing that constant, cursedly expectant gust of air in her chest, fixed single-mindedly on turning it into a sigh of disappointment.<p>

"What do YOU want, Loony?" he sneered at her, watching without sadness as his aunt's body was lowered into the ground.

"My biggest dream used to be to find a Crumple-Horned Snorkack," she replied somberly. "When I was even younger, it was to get my mother back." Luna let a handful of white petals flutter out of her hand onto Bellatrix's coffin. "Now I'm not so sure."

"You're crazy," Draco said flatly, turning to leave as soon as his mother and father- the only other attendees- had Disapparated. Luna walked beside him.

"A lot of people say that to me. Sometimes I even understand where they're coming from," Luna said. "But why do you think I'm crazy?"

Draco spared her a glance. Her eyes were wide and trained, unblinking, on his own.

"You're at the funeral of the woman who killed your friends and tortured you in the basement," Draco growled, cursing mentally. "You put flower petals on her grave!"

Luna nodded, finally relieving him of her intense gaze as she stared thoughtfully at a distant couple. "I suppose that could be considered crazy," she conceded.

Draco looked at her then, and waited until she turned back to him to roll his eyes at her.

Luna smiled.

Draco kept staring at her for a moment, bemused and more than a little frustrated. This girl was impossible to understand.

Draco turned away sharply, cheeks tinged pink. "Crazy," he muttered, and he turned on his heel, disappearing with a loud crack.

He didn't see her again until a few months later, but he nearly groaned when he did. Draco pulled his cloak around him against the slight chill in the air and walked faster, hoping she wouldn't spot him.

She did, of course.

"Draco," she called, her soft voice carrying over the crowd like a lullaby. He slowed to a stop and turned reluctantly, relieved that she wasn't with any of her friends at least. She stepped out of the doorway of the Gladrag's store she had been leaning in and walked to him with a soft smile, silvery orbs awaiting a greeting.

"Luna," he nodded grudgingly, wishing that look in her eyes would disappear, wishing that she was with one of her friends or even that she was one of them, gazing at him with the remains of a school rivalry in their eyes instead of- of that.

"You don't seem like you want to talk," she observed, head tilted slightly. "But it's been a while and I want to see how you are."

"Oh, now you know what you want," Draco grumbled.

Luna laughed, a sound that reminded him remarkably of bells tinkling, and to his surprise Draco found the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. She grabbed his hand and led him to a cafe across the street, sitting him down across from her at a small table.

"The hot chocolate here is delicious," she informed him seriously. "But how are you doing, Draco?"

Draco shrugged. "As well as can be expected, I suppose," he answered.

Luna looked at him, but he didn't meet her eyes, knowing that this time he'd see her wanting him to save puppies or something. "And what can be expected from you, Draco?" She reached out and covered the back of his hand with hers.

Draco looked out the window. "I don't know."

"What can I get for you today?" A redheaded waitress chirped suddenly, making Draco start. A Quick Quotes Quill floated above her notepad.

"A hot chocolate, extra whipped cream, extra marshmallows, cherry on top, please," Luna rattled off quickly, then once again turned an anticipative gaze on him.

"Same," Draco muttered quickly, pulling his hand away from Luna's. The waitress nodded and moved on.

Luna watched him for a moment and blinked slowly. "Reporters try to interview me sometimes," she said softly. "They ask the strangest questions, though. I don't like it much."

"A reporter caught up with me a few weeks ago," Draco said dryly. "He wasn't very nice."

"Oh," Luna said. "That's unfortunate."

"It is," Draco said, frowning. "He took a picture of me trying to avoid him and took the only thing I said- four words, by the way- and twisted it."

"That's why Daddy started the Quibbler," Luna told him. "The media has a nasty talent for warping things."

The red-haired witch quietly set their drinks in front of them and left. Luna immediately picked up a spoon and began eating the whipped cream off the top, setting the cherry on her napkin.

Draco removed the cherry from his drink and placed it beside Luna's. "Here," he murmured, and he began to stir his whipped cream into his drink.

"Thank you," Luna said, head tilted, looking for all the world as if out of everything he'd done, that was what truly surprised her.

"You're welcome," Draco returned cautiously, and they fell silent.

When Luna had spooned all of the whipped cream into her mouth, she seemed to notice that Draco had simply stirred his in. "It's much more fun to have the whipped cream by itself," she told him.

Draco set his hot chocolate down in front of him, ignoring the clink it made and the murky ring forming on the table around it. "What do you want?" he asked her, feeling suddenly tired.

Luna looked up at him through her lashes. "I'm not quite certain yet," she murmured in answer, tracing the rim of her mug.

Draco exhaled sharply. "Why are you even hanging around me?"

Luna looked at him full-on now, eyes misty in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"I'm not one of your friends," he said stiffly, an edge to his voice. "I was one of the bad guys! Don't you understand some of the things I've done?"

"Yes," Luna said clearly, staring straight at him.

"Then why?"

Luna looked at the cherries on her napkin then, confusion and- could it be?- frustration in her eyes. Draco couldn't take satisfaction from it, though, not when it meant he wouldn't receive an answer. Draco sighed again, slipping a Galleon onto the table, and left the small cafe, allowing a gust of cold air to swirl around Luna before the door closed with a soft chime.

She sought him out next time, knocking on the door of the small flat where he spent most of his time. He blinked at the familiar tousled blonde hair, taking a small step backwards.

"Luna," he said in surprise.

"Draco," she greeted him, smiling.

"What are you doing here? How did you find me?"

"I talked to the reporter who misquoted you," Luna said to Draco. "He told me where you live after I... after I informed him as to your thoughts on the article."

There was a short silence, thick with something Draco didn't quite understand. Then he remembered his manners.

Draco stepped away from the door, opening it all the way. "Come in," he offered awkwardly. Luna stepped inside the residence of the former Death Eater, letting Draco close the door behind her as she wandered over to his couch.

Draco kept his flat in immaculate condition, making sure it always looked like someone as "respectable" as the son of Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Black could live here. Not that Draco would call his current state of being "life" if he had a more appropriate term.

"They've finished rebuilding Hogwarts," Luna said suddenly. "They even got the Room of Requirement working again. It's all the way it was before."

"No it's not," Draco snarled at her.

"You're right. It was silly of me to say that," Luna said sadly. Then she looked at him.

Expectantly.

"Will you stop looking at me like that?" Draco snapped, angry in a way that he hadn't been since fifth year. "You come over here, for no reason, saying silly things and looking at me like- like you ALWAYS do, you always do that, you just look at me like I'm the only person who matters, like I should be kissing babies and stopping world hunger and giving you all the answers, and it's driving me INSANE, Lovegood, can't you see that?"

Luna smiled at him. "I knew there was something you needed to say."

Draco dropped to the couch, pressing his hands into his forehead like he needed to block out the world. Tears dripped silently from his eyes as he gave up controlling his emotions like he'd been taught. "You don't know what it was like," he cried hoarsely. "None of you know what it was like, except maybe my parents, and they don't talk, they can't, they don't know how!"

He was clawing at his hair now, gripping it in his fists like it was the enemy he fought.

Luna slid onto the couch beside him, wrapping her arms around him slowly. "I'm sorry," she whispered, resting her head on his shoulder as she hugged him to her.

"I don't know what to do," he admitted. "I didn't then and I don't now and I probably never will, and I HATE it." Draco leaned into Luna, breathing in the faint scent of lavender on her skin and staring blankly at nothing.

"It's okay, Draco," Luna murmured. "It's okay to be confused and scared, and it's okay to be lonely. Just as long as you don't stay that way," she finished, squeezing him slightly.

"You're crazy," he rasped at her.

"I know," she said strongly, amusement sounding faintly in her voice.

Draco leaned back a little so Luna could see him raise an eyebrow at her. "I know why I think you're crazy. I can even understand where other people are coming from." He paused. "But why do you think you're crazy?"

Luna smiled. "I finally figured out what I wanted," she whispered triumphantly.

"Yeah?" Draco straightened. "What's that?"

"I kept seeing you from a distance, and I kept feeling like I should talk to you. I didn't think I should act on that so I ignored it, but it grew into this constant feeling that I was missing something important. So I went to your aunt's funeral, and I talked to you, but I knew as soon as you left that I wasn't done yet. So I kept an eye out for you, making excuses for extra trips to Diagon Alley." Luna stopped for a moment to fix Draco's mussed hair.

"I felt like I was getting closer to whatever it was, but you turned the tables on me and asked me something I couldn't answer. Then you left. I stayed in that cafe until I had an answer, you know," Luna told him seriously. Draco blinked in surprise and wondered idly where, exactly, she was going with this.

"And I knew I had to find you. I looked up that article on you, which took me a while because I didn't know exactly when it had been written, and when I found it reading it made me so mad. I was already intending on asking the author where I could find you, but after that I had to give him a piece of my mind." Luna's voice took on a grim tone, and suddenly Draco could clearly see her temper where he'd been unable to find one before.

"He was more than willing to give me an address when I threatened him with Nargles," Luna added impishly. Draco chuckled. "He didn't know what they actually were, of course, otherwise he'd have known that they wouldn't really lick the skin off his toes with their sandpapery tongue."

At that, Draco burst out laughing, surprised by the sound but unable to stop. Beside him Luna let loose her own chime-like giggle.

When Draco regained his breath he turned back to Luna, feeling strangely light-hearted. "So what did you want?"

Luna shifted but didn't remove her gaze. "It had gotten worse, you see," she whispered to him. "Instead of just needing to talk to you, I found myself needing to be around you, and to touch your hand, and to make you laugh, and I just didn't know why. They nearly kicked me out of that cafe before I figured it out," Luna said remorsefully. "It was unusually slow of me, but I suppose I might have been in denial a little."

Draco waited for Luna to continue, but she was watching him expectantly, a little bemused smile on her face.

"So why?" Draco asked finally. "Why did you need to- to talk to me so much?"

Luna's smile grew and she leaned in slightly. "Because I wanted to," she whispered.

And before Draco could quite process what was happening, Luna had leaned through the gap between them and placed a chaste, sweet kiss on his lips.

Draco's eyes were wide; the breath had left his chest and it seemed that all he could do was stare at Luna as if he were crazy.

Luna slowly lifted his hand and traced his fingers with her own, tickling the skin lightly. Then she looked up at him expectantly.

Draco found he didn't mind anymore.

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><p>-Marlicat<p> 


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